Parallels and Contrasts between Luffy and Blackbeard

I think we’ve all noticed some of the differences between Luffy and Blackbeard but I wanted to get more in depth about it. When Teach was first introduced Oda showed right off the bat that the characters are opposites with their comments about the pie in Jaya and their following argument. Here are the differences I’ve noticed other than taste in food.

Planning: Teach has been shown to be a big planner where as Luffy is is more confrontational and faces his problems head on typically without any plan. This is pretty straight forward so I don’t have much else to say

Allies: Teach makes enemies, a lot of them. Luffy may have declared war on the world government but Teach actively used and humiliated them. Teach also made enemies with all of the Whitebeard pirates by killing a member over a devil fruit and delivering Ace to the world government wich also made an enemy out of Luffy. Luffy on the other hand is really good at making allies and people are just drawn to him, he even has a few people in the navy such as Fujitora and Coby who respect and actually like him with Fujitora stalling for as long as possible over capturing Luffy, Luffy also quickly made allies with Whitebeard even to the point that he ordered his men to protect him with their lives which was surprising for everyone, he even got the man hating Hancock to fall for him. Not to mention Luffy’s friendship with Shanks. Even Mihawk commented about Luffy’s ability of turning the people around him into allies.

Recruiting: this is a more subtle one that I only noticed recently. Luffy is a very welcoming person and for the most part will let people join his crew if he likes them, irregardless of their strength. Luffy also doesn’t care about reputation and asks people to join on a case by case basis, at the very beginning when Luffy went to recruit Zoro even after hearing about how he’s a monster and a demon he disregards his fearsome reputation and say “I’m going to see if he’s a nice guy”, Luffy judges people on his own observations rather than that of others, this also shows when he tells Shirahoshi she’ll have to decide herself if he’s a bad person or not. Teach on the other hand cares much more about having a “strong” crew, going so far as to break into Impel Down’s level 6 to recruit pirates based on their reputation alone (showing he DOES care about reputation and even bases decisions on it), and had them fight to the death because he only wanted the strongest. Luffy’s crew is incredibly loyal to him, but I don’t think that Teach’s is, though I can’t say for certain if that’s true or not but I’m sure Oda will show is in time.

Age: one is old the other ain’t

Devil fruits: Teach is incredibly reliant on his devil fruit powers, going as far as not making a move until he found the one he wanted and spent the two year time skip hunting down more to gain more power even though his original is said to be the most powerful. Luffy on the other hand is strong even without his devil fruit, but he uses it with his strength and usually doesn’t really solely on it especially after the time skip since he know knows haki. Luffy’s devil fruit is also arguably one of the weakest. Luffy spent the two year time skip learning Haki growing stronger by looking inward to his own strength while Teach grew stronger looking outward to outside sources. When it comes to devil fruits Teach is a jack of all trades master of none, where as Luffy has grown with and mastered his devil fruit

Luffy also shares some similarities with Marshall D. Teach.

They are the only captains of the Worst Generation who are referred by their epithet instead of their actual name to those who do not personally know them.

They are the only known members who carries the “D” name that is publicly known by everyone.

They are the only ones whose known goal is to become Pirate King and find the One Piece.